My 2.5 year old maltipoo Scottie has recently started snapping/growling at night when he’s falling asleep or half asleep. He and I lived in Florida the first 2 years of his life and he had no issues with sleeping or snapping. He’s very silly and normally even tempered. We moved to PA in September and now live with my fiancé. The past few months sleep has been a nightmare for him (and us). He started off by randomly growling, barking, screeching, and occasionally snapping in his sleep. Sometimes it would be when he was falling asleep and sometimes in the middle of the night. It seemed to typically happen when my fiancé or I in the bed would move so I thought maybe he was getting startled. But it’s recently escalated and happens when it’s just Scottie and I in the bed and I’m awake so I know I’m not moving.
Last night he was in some sort of a twilight and he snapped. I tried to pet him to comfort him and then he looked at me, sat up, and started to attack and bite my hand. He seemed out of it. About a month ago I started encouraging him to sleep in his own bed on the floor – sometimes I would put him in it in the middle of the night when he’d start growling and then I started just telling him to go in it before we all went to bed and turned off the lights. It seems to help some, but he does still growl/snap/ bark occasionally even when he’s down there. I took him to the vet and they said he is physically fine. He doesn’t seem to be in any pain and he’s completely normal when he’s awake.
Has this happened to anyone else? All I can think of it change of environment but I’m not sure what to do to help.
submitted by /u/JanuaryRuth
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